


Tightwire (A Black Widow origin story)

by aurora_ff



Series: (Time is) A Bullet from Behind [1]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Orphans, Red Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-20 10:13:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 5,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1506749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_ff/pseuds/aurora_ff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanov (Black Widow) remembers the dark events of her youth and her pre-S.H.I.E.L.D career. This is an ongoing "catch all" for Natalia's early Academy/Red Room days. (Written before 'Age of Ultron', so is not exactly MCU compliant).</p><p>  <i>Abandoned WIP.</i></p><p>Because this is a Black Widow back-story, things are pretty horrible and pretty dark and sometimes traumatic in this one. Nothing is explicitly described, but you've been warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Thread

**Author's Note:**

> Possible triggers: Non-consensual touching between minors, and references to physical and emotional abuse. Suicide. Memory manipulation, emotional manipulation.

Natasha sat on the roof of the Prague apartment complex where she and Clint decided to stay low for a while as the last of the dust cleared from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s implosion. The city lights cast their own shadows, masking her presence as she stared down at the curving black waters of the Vltava and the historic buildings in the valley below.

In her lap she held the ivory satin nightgown she wore but once, the single night she and Steve Rogers spent indulging the lusts of their bodies, the needs of their hearts. A gust of wind threatened to tear the dress out of her hands, fluttering the silk like a flag of surrender.

Natasha clenched her jaw, remembering her words to Clint: “I know I’ve lost my edge. Bear with me; I’m going to get it back.”

She couldn’t hesitate and didn’t hesitate, as with one clean motion she ripped the gown apart. The sound of splitting seams was like a shot, a thunderbolt. She felt herself take a deep and shuddering breath. There. Done. There would never be a way to go back, to pretend she could be the woman Steve deserved.

Letting he mind drift, her fingers picked at a strand of silk where she had rent the thing into a rag.

When she had given Rogers the dossier on the Winter Soldier, she had warned him of the wisdom of tracing Barne’s past.

It wasn’t just because Steve would find himself in danger from HYDRA; Natasha knew he could handle that. It was because he would also stumble upon the awful dark truths of how she became the Black Widow; it would stain her in his mind forever, taint him by association.

The fiber she toyed with came free, and Natasha examined the white thread closely, pinched between her two fingers. Then she opened her hand and let it be carried away from her into the wind.

Memory by memory, the weave of her past came easily in a way she hadn’t indulged in years. Clint would have shaken her and told her to stop. But Clint wasn’t here this moment to rescue her yet again from herself.


	2. Foundlings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Contains brief descriptions of child abuse.

There was an old-fashioned term for her; “foundling.”

She always hated that word, for it masked the fact that before she had been found by strangers, she had been abandoned by her family. Left in a back-alley like so much trash, only seven months old.

Into the state-sponsored system she went, first to a baby house and then into a regular orphanage. The caretakers named her Natalia.

The doctors that examined her annually found her body sound and mind bright. Once, in her seventh year, the doctor told her forlornly: “If the Motherland was still strong, child, you could have been a famous ballerina. Or a gymnast. What a waste. What a horrible waste.”

Some of the other kids made up stories about who their birth parents were and why they had been forced to give up their cherubs. A little blond-haired boy was actually the secret heir to the last Russian Emperor, and the girl Natalia shared a mattress with would go on and on about how she was a fairy that had been stripped of her wings. All of them, stupid.

Natalia became labeled as a troublemaker for minor thefts and fights with the other children. They disciplined her. Sometimes she was denied food for days; sometimes they locked her in a windowless closet with only a bucket to relieve herself; sometimes it was with a shoe or belt.

“Why can’t you just be good, Natalia?!”, the caretakers asked again and again.

Hot tears streamed down her cheeks, as she sobbed from pain and humiliation. “I don’t know!,” she blubbered. “I don’t know!”

Natalia was in one of her hiding spots, letting her face dry and trying to ignore the pangs in her stomach, when he found her. Raven-haired and eyed, she recognized the boy as one of the children who just transferred from another institution. A couple of years older than her, he still wasn’t much bigger than herself. 

He sat down beside her, and without a word he held out a slightly withered apple to her. “I’m Dmitri.”

Natalia eyed the apple suspiciously. It was a way the kids bullied each other, offering a gift and then snatching it back at the last moment.

“I’ll just leave it.” And he placed the apple on the floor, and stepped away. “No one else here is as smart as me except you; we should be friends.”

They would become more than that. Much, much more.


	3. Alarms

At only seven years old, Natalia executed her first mission. It was Dmitri’s idea, to run away from the orphanage. Why it never had occurred to her before puzzled her. Perhaps it was because the squat compound had been the only home she had ever known, no matter how miserable it made her.

Dmitri knew better. He had been out on the streets before coming here. Preferred them. His descriptions of his capers and how he had evaded the authorities again and again were the best bedtime stories she had ever heard. It was only the ratting out of one of his gang that got him sent here, and it was something that Dmitri swore he would not forget, his liquid-dark eyes smoldering.

"When we get out, it will be just you and me."

The caretakers attributed Natalia’s improvement in behavior to her friendship with the dark-haired boy. For days, she and he conspired, heads bent close together. The phase the Americans used was “thick as thieves.”

Dmitri taught her the first lessons of good spywork. A whole pack of cigarettes and books of matches would be missed, but not one or two, taken days apart from each other from the head administrator’s desk. The same with the cotton balls and petroleum jelly from the nurse’s station. And a few bobby pins that Dmitri hammered secretly with a rock out in the exercise yard.

The eve of their escape, Natalia was nervous. Before, while she and Dmitri planned and filched, it seemed like just an elaborate game, a secret demonstration of just how superior they were to their captors. Now she had her doubts.

“But what if someone gets hurt?,” she asked him, frowning.

“It’ll be no where near the bunkrooms, Nat,” Dmitri assured. “Besides, what do you care? You don’t really like any of them. You only like me, right?”

Natalia must have paused for too long in her answer, because Dmitri grabbed her arm, and squeezed it till it began to hurt. “Ow! Yes! Only you!” she blurted.

A smile came to his lips as his grip loosened. “Good. You know your part, and I know mine. Rendezvous at the cemetery down the road when you get out. And don’t forget to dress warmly to bed.”

The night caretaker made her 2 AM count of the children. Then quietly and like a cat, Natalia got up from her shared bed and tip-toed through the halls towards the lesson-room. She twisted the doorknob, and found it unlocked, just as Dmitri had promised.

From the pocket of her tattered fifth-hand robe, she pulled out the cigarette and the cotton balls that she had smothered with the petroleum jelly. Biting her lip, she arranged them so the lit cigarette would slowly burn down, igniting the cotton which would set afire the obsolete Cold-War era textbooks in the shelf above. Her hand trembled as she struck the match.

A few minutes later, Natalia waited in the shadows by the locked gate. Her heart pounded so loudly she thought it could be heard as far away as Moscow. She watched with grim fascination at a warm, orangish glow begin to shine through the windows of the lesson-room, and gasped as the flames caught the dusty curtains.

It set off a fire-alarm. Lights immediately came on in the headmaster’s suite.

Still she had to wait, and a waft of acrid smoke filled her nostrils. She heard the screams of frightened and confused children. 

As the main gate was opened for the fire-crew, Natalia bolted out into the moonlit night. She rarely got to run, and by the time she blasted into the cemetery, her lungs were burning.

From behind a large monument, something grabbed at her, and she would have screamed if it weren’t for Dmitri’s vice-like hold and hand clasped over her mouth. She could feel his own labored breath on the back of her neck as he released her.

“We could do anything, Nat. We could rule the world if we stick together,” he whispered, a thrill in his voice. “You and me, right?”

This time, Dmitri didn’t need to squeeze her arm. “Yes. You and me.”


	4. Only You

For the couple of years, Dmitri and Natalia, she and him, found their survival on the streets of Volgograd. At first, she floundered horribly. Helpless without him, absolutely naive to life outside the orphanage walls. Without Dmitri’s protection, she would have been picking through the garbage, been found frozen in an alley or returned to the callous care of the state. There was also worse. Dmitri often hinted at the terrible brutalities that awaited her without his presence, but then he hugged her and said. “Never mind that. I’ll never let you go.”

What was at first pickpocketing, petty thefts, and break-ins increasingly gave way into con-jobs. There were times Dmitri fawned over her, praising her heart-shaped face, the innocent wideness of her green eyes. She began to understand her own beauty and the power it had to elicit the emotions of others. The very sentiment that Dmitri seemed to take joy in milking.

“You’re just a doll to them, Natalia. Where were they when you were put in a closet? Starved? They only care about what’s pretty and pleasant and agreeable. And we’ll make them all pay.”

Dmitri also kept the other street-boys away from her with a fierce protectiveness. He was not all that strong, but he was quick and clever, and had this way of turning words to disarm or intimidate his opponents before he ever drew a knife.

Even after she had gotten some street-sense, Dmitri often shadowed her.

“You love only me, right?”, he often asked, in the darkness where they found shelter for a night.

She hugged him. “Yes, only you.”


	5. Practice

In her eleventh summer, Dmitri and Natalia left Volgograd for Moscow. A new person was the head of the city police in their old haunt, and he wasn’t as warm to the small bribes Dmitri offered to keep the officers disinterested in their doings.

She and he sat next to each other on the long train ride north. Natalia watched the landscape go by with fascination, never seeing so much green before. Dmitri mostly glowered at their escort who masqueraded as their aunt, an aging woman with jowls and ice-blue eyes.

“You know, I could find work for her there, too. Good work,” the woman offered. “Red-hair, tiny waste. Worth a lot of money.” Natalia suddenly blushed and squirmed uncomfortably, not understanding much, but still feeling like she was being appraised and haggled over, like a lifted watch. “And look at those lips. She has a mouth for -- ”

“Shut up,” Dmitri snapped. “She’s not for sale.”

Dmitri’s arm wrapped around her protectively and Natalia settled into his shoulder, turning her eyes away from the sour and greedy woman.

Later that week, when they curled together on a mattress in an abandoned factory they shared with a few other runaways, Dmitri’s hands began to touch her under the blankets in ways they never had before. 

“What are you….?” she whispered, shifting to face him and propping her head up on her arm.

Dmitri’s eyes were like two inky pools. “You are blooming, Natalia. You’ll be a woman soon.”

“What does that mean?” Her heart began pounding, and she didn’t know if it was fear or something else. Her stomach grew queasy.

Dmitri did not answer her. He just whispered, “Kiss me.”

Furrowing her brow, she planted a quick kiss on his lips, like she sometimes did when they said goodbye for a few hours.

His hand suddenly grabbed a fistful of her hair, and she cried out in discomfort and surprise. “No. Kiss me like a woman.”

Dmitri’s mouth crushed down on her own, his tongue ramming into her mouth. She gagged, struggling briefly, but his grasp on her scalp and his arm around her waist made that futile.

She couldn’t fight him. She couldn’t run away. The only thing she could do was surrender, giving him what he wanted. As she forced herself to relax, his grip on her eased and his mouth finally ended its lock on hers.

“That was good, Nat. But I know you can do better with a little practice.”

Shame burned on her cheeks and turned to lay back down, hoping to sleep. It didn’t come until the light of pre-dawn bathed the room in cold, bluish color.


	6. A World of Color and Wonder

Another brief Moscow summer was coming to a close. Dmitri was starting to get into the drug trade, hooking up with a local ring. Natalia had guessed it was only the matter of time since they moved here from Volgograd that he would get caught up in that business. It's what street-boys his age graduated to. There was better money in it than pilfering or con-jobs; it offered them more protection, as long as they played their cards right. For the most part, Natalia served as only as a delivery girl for bribes. 

They could actually afford an apartment together, renting it for the first time under Dmitri’s own name. As runaways, they had no last name other than what they chose to take. Romanov was as good as any.

Something else in Dmitri changed that summer, too. He started treating Natalia like less like a sister and more like a sweetheart, buying her dresses and shoes, insisting that she put them on for him. When she twirled, he smiled and drew her to him. She knew by now when he wanted a kiss from her, or when he wanted to guide his hands over her body as her curves began to fill out.

Katrina, a fourteen-year-old daughter of one of Dmitri’s associates, befriended her; Natalia suspected that her interest was arranged. She was a bit too vapid for Natalia’s taste, but she taught her how to do her hair, put on makeup, and about the biological things that came along with womanhood. Katrina was still in school, so she brought Natalia books and pamphlets to try to help catch her up.

Katrina would occasionally point out cute guys to her as they sipped coffee at their regular cafe, but Natalia kept her eyes down or made some non-committal comment; she was Dmitri’s to kiss and to touch and to love; no one else’s.

One day, Katrina invited her to see the Moscow circus. Natalia had never indulged in the spectacle; she and Dmitri went there only to pickpocket the tourists along Vernadsky Avenue. Natalia was going to turn her down, but she begged, offering her the ticket for nothing.

The girl fidgeted in her seat while the lights dimmed and the first act appeared. Not twenty minutes later, Natalia was transfixed by the performances, the illusion that the performers were floating above the world in a place of color and wonder, motion and beauty.

“Isn’t it just magical, Natalia?” Katrina sighed.

Natalia had never dreamed or hoped of a different life before, but she saw in the acrobats and artists something not out of her reach. In the mornings she got up hours before Dmitri and stretched at the kitchen counter, trying to improve her flexibility. She began to practice balancing objects on a single fingertip as she walked, or seeing how long she could stay poised on one foot. She got better day by day, amazed at how her reflexes responded. She was eager to see what really training under a real instructor would do.

On the way to slipping an envelope into a dead drop, she picked up an application from the circus school.

For the first time she could remember, Natalia began to feel at peace with the world; that there was a place for her that didn’t need to be coerced through lies, thievery, and blackmail.


	7. Away with the Circus

Tchaikovsky played on the radio while Natalia danced throughout their apartment. She knew the strains of the orchestra by heart, because it was played at the orphanage on an old, state-issued record player. She was once resentful of it, because she thought the caretakers used to it try to calm the children, keep them compliant. Now she delighted.

Pausing by the radio, she cranked the volume up higher, rising on her toes and watching her own arms sway like willow branches.

She closed her eyes, let the music take her as she spun and spun.

A vise closed on her wrist, and she gasped, nearly stumbling.

“What are you doing?” he growled.

Dmitri stunk of vodka and cigarettes, his skin flushed, his jacket still on from his trip back from the bar, or wherever. Natalia panicked, tried to pull her arm away, but he squeezed tighter.

“I was just dancing…” she answered, trembling.

“I thought you needed a partner for that,” he mocked, pulling her body hard against him. “Do you want to dance with me, Natalia?” The tone in his voice suggested something lewd. “Or is it a solo act?”

“Let me go, Dmitri!” she pleaded, confusion rising. “Let me go…”

“Let you go where? Away with the circus?” He shoved the crumpled application at her chest, and Natalia froze.

Suddenly, all harshness fell from him. His hand trembled as he let her wrist slide from his fingers. He backpedaled into the nearest wall and then slumped to the floor.

Choked with emotion, his eyes welling tears, he looked up at her. “Were you going to tell me?” Sobs began to shake his shoulders. “I thought...we were going to be together forever, through everything, Natalia. I thought we promised each other that. Till the end of our days.” Dmitri turned his eyes to the floor. He wrapped his arms around himself, tucking his hands in his jacket.

Natalia frowned, suddenly feeling small, foolish, and selfish. Dmitri had saved her life, and she was thinking of abandoning him. “I won’t go,” she soothed, trying to console him and herself. “I’m sorry, Dmitri. It was a stupid fantasy; I let myself believe in a stupid fairy tale. For once, I just felt...happy.”

Dmitri shook his bowed head and muttered something angry to himself and then: "Maybe you _would_ be better off without me, Natalia."

She swallowed, and approached him, kneeling down to embrace him. “No. No. I love you,” she said, her heart welling with regret. "I'll never leave."

She heard a small click. He gazed up at her again, flashing her a brief, beautiful, boyish smile at the end of a revolver barrel. “I love you more,” he said, as he pushed her away with one hand and pulled the trigger on himself with the other.


	8. The Thread (Continuation)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint discovers Natasha lost in her memories. See "Chapter 1: The Thread."

Clint returned to the flat with a couple of bags of groceries and a couple of new opportunities for identities he wanted to run by Natasha. He moved quietly in case she was already asleep, but as he set the keys down on the table, he saw her note. “Up top. 2100.”

He checked his watch, which flashed “01:33”, and cursed.

Still the voice in the back of his head warned him to keep his cool and check the hallway junctions and fire doors before proceeding up the stairwell. Plenty of agents had been tricked over the years into panicking about a colleague, and they headed right into a trap. Natasha would never fall for it; neither could he.

His heart skipped a beat when he found her hunched and motionless on the roof. “Natasha!” he called, sinking down to examine her. Her eyes were open, staring down at white silk rags bunched and wound in her fists. He held his cheek to her lips, feeling her slow and steady breath as he also checked her pulse. Her vitals were fine, but her skin felt cold. She had stayed up here in the wind too long, exposed.

Clint had found her like this before, completely shut down and unresponsive. He knew what caused it, and he knew what to do.

He gently unwound the remains of the nightgown from her hands and stuffed it in his jacket pocket; he would deal with that thing later. Then he wrapped her limp arm around his shoulder and scooped her up. “Maybe we’ll take the elevator. What do you say, Nat?” he offered, warmly, as if nothing was wrong.

Back down at the apartment Clint sat her down on the bed, then started the shower, letting it come up to temp. Her eyes were still blank. He slid off her slippers, and he kicked off his boots and socks, then shrugged off his jacket and tossed it in the corner chair.

His fingers tested the water one more time. He made a minor adjustment, then returned to Natasha. “OK, kiddo. He we go.” 

He carried her into the shower. Then, pinning her upright against the tile with his weight, he directed the showerhead to the back of her neck. 

The water began to saturate their clothing, and with his free hand, Clint sluiced the water down her arms, and over her shoulders. “Come back, Natasha,” he called calmly, again and again.

Clint took a deep, stoic breath. He wasn’t a saint, at least not in his own eyes. But she needed _someone_ who saw past her masks, someone that didn’t take advantage of the times when she allowed herself her own humanity, someone who didn’t fit into her expectations --no, her _conditioning_ \-- of what she was to a man, or what she was to her handler. Someone to trust completely.

Clint recalled a snippet of intel in Natalia Romanova’s S.H.I.E.L.D. file, when he initially profiled her for his hit.

_...Twelve-year-old subject of interest was found sitting on the floor of Apt. 2-56 in a catatonic state. She held the body of a fifteen-year-old boy, ID'd as Dmitri Romanov, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Subject was present at the time of death and likely witness to the suicide, estimated to be approximately 18 hours before. Subject was extracted without detection or suspicion of the local authorities…_

When Clint brought a breathing woman back to headquarters instead of an enemy agent in a body-bag, he thought Director Fury would blow a gasket for the blatant defiance of orders. Yet he convinced Fury to forgo S.H.I.E.L.D.’s usual assessment protocols to bring her into the fold, skipping weeks of psychiatric evaluation, the results of which he knew would have dismissed her genius in the name of risk-management.

“If she’s playing us, Agent Barton; if she turns out a double-agent, an infiltrator, or a loose-cannon -- _if she’s seduced you_ \-- it’s on your head. Yours alone,” Fury had warned him during that fateful debrief. “ And we’re not talking just a few months furlough, Barton. You got that?”

“I understand, sir. She’s my responsibility,” he had said with conviction. In the end, Natasha was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s greatest assets. Fury never apologized, but that wasn’t his way.

Within a matter of months, rumor circulated that Clint and Natasha were romantically involved. They often slept in the same quarters together, and they interacted with intimate knowledge of each other's thoughts and habits. The truth was something they kept to themselves, and the gossip they used as a smoke-screen. Even Loki had assumed, leaving that exact corner of Clint’s memories untouched during his possession. Anyone else not in their line of work would have named their bond for what it was: love. But words were the primary medium of lies, so she and he contented themselves with the devotion of actions.

As the water began to cool, Natasha’s confused voice asked in Russian, “Where am I?”

Clint answered in English. “Czech Republic. Prague. 2014.”

She blinked and he leaned away, easing her down to stand on her own two feet.

“Clint?”

“Yeah,” he said, steadily.

“Why are we in a shower with our clothes on?” As she looked up to him, her face seemed fifteen years younger.

He smiled gently, and shrugged almost imperceptively. “I ran out of quarters for the laundry?”


	9. A Red Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twelve-year-old Natasha finds herself in the care of those that offer her another life.

Natalia had no memory of being taken away from the Moscow flat where she clung to Dmitri. The only thing her nightmares replayed was his blood, hot, gushing into her lap, congealing on her hands and arms, on the floor surrounding them. Staining her forever.

She struggled and swam in a sea of red without any shore. Now and then lightning would arc through a starless black sky.

Then that world parted like stage curtains, and she smelled the faint scent of bleached sheets and heard voices speaking around her, a man and a woman. A light shone overhead.

“...four years behind. Even if she could catch up…the damage...”

“...no, we can use that…”

“...she’s awake.”

Then the man called her name. “Natalia?”

“Yes?” she murmured, feeling groggy and achy, a hollowness somewhere inside of her.

“You’re sedated now, but it will wear off in a few hours. Mrs. Vitt will talk to you then.”

* * *

Natalia played with her spoon, ladling the warm broth and then, drip by drip, letting it pour back into the bowl. Her recovery room was windowless, with only a painting of a vase of roses to decorate it.

“Are you going to take me back to the orphanage?” Natalia asked the middle-aged woman who sat next to her bed. The woman had a severe beauty, with high cheekbones and brown hair pulled back into a neat bun. She was meticulously dressed. Mrs. Vitt, she supposed.

“No, Natalia. You are in our care now, and we are going to train you,” the woman said matter-of-factly.

The girl frowned. “The circus? But I never…”

“Not the circus, my dear. Something more. Do you recall that doctor that examined you when you were seven?”

Natalia just shrugged, not looking up from the bowl. She did remember him. But she wasn’t sure she liked this lady.

“He was going to bring you to me. So I could adopt you. But you ran away.”

Adoption. She remembered most of the orphan children said prayers every night hoping to be given a home of their very own. A new mother and a new father. The thought of it just made her angry. Natalia dropped the spoon in the bowl.

“That never happens. No one answers orphans' prayers,” she said sullenly.

“But here you are,” Mrs. Vitt said evenly. “You are incredibly smart, Natalia. Resourceful. Naturally graceful. Those are talents that were wasted on the streets.” She continued. “Talents that could raise us all from the rubble.”

Natalia found herself spit out, “I don’t fucking care, lady!” She crossed her arms and looked to the wall.

Mrs. Vitt sighed. “You may not. But I want you to think about something, Natalia.” The lithe woman rose to her feet and clasped Natalia’s chin, making the girl lock eyes with her. “We’ll train you to defend yourself, so you’ll never have to be afraid to walk alone in the dark. We’ll train you to be able to get in and out of any secured building, so you’ll never be trapped. We’ll train you to read people’s thoughts and desires like a book, so that you’ll always be the one in control.”

Natalia swallowed, and she felt herself struck with an emotion she couldn’t quite describe. The woman smiled faintly and released her hold. Mrs. Vitt then walked towards the door.

“Dmitri gave his life so you could have a better one, a new one. Don’t make his love meaningless.”

When the door latched and Natalia was alone again, she clenched her eyes shut. She tried holding back, fearing that once she started, she would never ever stop. But it was futile and the tears came anyway, then the sobs wracking her entire body, her voice keening and choking. She rocked herself, bit her fist and the pillows. Finally, after what must have been hours and hours, she cried herself to sleep.

* * *

When Natalia awoke, Mrs. Vitt was back in the room. Another bowl of steaming broth sat on the bed-stand. 

This time Natalia sat up and began to eat the soup slowly. Mrs. Vitt watched her calmly, but did not say anything.

Finally, Natalia broke the silence. “I’ll do it." She bit her lip, and sighed. "Just... I don’t want to ever hear his name again, OK?”

Mrs. Vitt smiled in a way that sent a chill down Natalia’s back. “You have yourself a deal, my dear.”


	10. A Hand in History

The first year at the Academy was the most difficult for Natalia. Her reading and writing skills had never been great; she could have blamed the orphanage, but she also blamed herself for not really seeing the use of them when she was out on the streets.

The same with languages. She was schooled to drop her accent while on a long curriculum of learning to speak French, Arabic, English (both American and British dialects), and Mandarin.

Some days she became frustrated and lashed out at her tutors. That is when Mrs. Ursula Vitt would come into her unadorned bedroom and speak with her.

Natalia was never punished, not like they did in the orphanage. Instead, Mrs. Vitt would sit next to her, and calmly persuade her charge.

“We give you the opportunity to learn these things so you can become anyone, Natalia. Anyone you like; anyone you need to be,” Ursula explained.

Natalia shrugged. “I am not very good at pretend.”

“Oh no?” Ursula asked. “Try this. Close your eyes. Imagine that you’ve known me all my life. Who was I at your age?”

Natalia did not need to spend long at it. “You were a ballerina-in-training.” 

Warmth was in Ursula’s voice. “Very good, my dear. And who was I at twenty?”

Natalia knitted her brow. “I don’t know...um...I just see lots of people throwing flowers at your feet. Important people.”

Natalia felt fingers stroke her hair, and she could not help but lean in to the woman. “That’s right,” Ursula confirmed. “Generals, celebrities, politicians...they all desired me. Because they saw only what I wanted them to see, a free-spirited dancer, they thought I was harmless. They didn’t see my hand in history.”

“Now,” Ursula murmured, “Open your eyes.”

She did so, but didn’t move from where her head rested on Ursula’s shoulder.

The woman continued. “The best dancers drill every day. It is tedious and painful, but in the end, there is the finest of control. Mastery over yourself.” She took Natalia’s hand. “Now, if you suffer through all this, you’ll be able to think like a Frenchman, or an American heiress. The world will be open to you.”

Natalia nodded. “I think I understand.”

“I know you do, Natalia. Don’t deny yourself your own brilliance for few difficult conjugations.”


	11. Only Things Are Sold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And, after spending a lot of time with wrapping up [ "Loose Ends" ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1550105/chapters/3284006), we return to the way Natalia was made and unmade into the Black Widow.

The tongues of other peoples were not the only skills Natalia was taught to master. In fact, it was just the tip of an iceberg.

There were probably a hundred girls in all at the Academy, ranging from ages eight to sixteen. All of them were beautiful and naturally graceful. All of them were her competitors. Mostly she trained with the girls in her age-group, at least on the physical stuff. Sometimes Natalia was placed with the younger girls for the book and computer learning.

Sometimes her learning was pleasurable, and her place here felt like a choice she wanted to make. Natalia enjoyed the text puzzles she was given to decipher or re-encode and the memory games. She was already pretty-good at lock-picking from her street time, but they made her better. Even the hand-to-hand fighting she was trained in each day was rather like dancing.

The Academy had a set of unspoken rules. The girls did not speak to each other on any matter other than the exact lesson or task at hand. They knew each other’s names from the lessons, but no one would speak of how they came here, of who they had been before here. In the first week Natalia was there, while eating breakfast she had tried to strike up a conversation with a girl her own age with black hair, but she was met only with a silent grimace and derisive stares from the others. 

Natalia understood without being told that friendships were weakness. The only person she was free to say anything personal to was Mrs. Ursula Vitt, in the solitude of her own room, when the woman would visit her about every-other night before she went to bed.

The Academy tested her frequently, against the other girls, and against herself. The bottom performers disappeared from the dining hall and the showers and disappeared from classes. Her teachers made no remarks.

One night, Natalia decided to be bold, so she screwed up her courage and asked Mrs. Vitt. “What happened to Svetlana? The blond girl that used to sit next to me when we practiced making our handwriting look like someone else’s?”

Mrs. Vitt smiled softly in that way that made her uneasy. “We sold her, Natalia.”

It’s as if Natalia missed a block and she got punched in the gut.

She felt her voice raise in the start of panic. “But _people_ aren’t sold. _Things_ are sold. Only things!”

Mrs. Vitt frowned. “Control yourself, Natalia. You’re better than hysterics.”

So Natalia breathed and did some of the tricks that one of her instructors taught her to remain calm. Cool. Control was rewarded; smart inquiry was rewarded. Detachment was rewarded.

Calmly, Natalia then asked. “Who did you sell her to?”

She was gifted with a cold truth. “An Italian politician with a taste for young girls. There are so many monsters out there that have a taste for young girls who don’t measure up.” Mrs. Vitt narrowed her eyes. "Did you like Svetlana?"

A voice within Natalia told her lie. Lie, lie, lie. Lie like it meant her life. "A loser like that?!" Natalia scoffed. 

Mrs. Vitt then drew her into her arms, an embrace, and Natalia wished for a moment that Ursula was her mother.

“Am I measuring up?” the girl then asked it neutrally, even though her stomach was revolting. 

Mrs. Vitt cupped her chin, as if she had some fondness. She kissed Natalia’s forehead. “You’ve come a long way, my dear. But nothing in this place is certain.”


	12. Author's Note - A Reboot In Store

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the revelations of the first season of 'Agent Carter' and the upcoming 'Avengers: Age of Ultron,' I am abandoning this WIP. Rather than delete it from Ao3, I am leaving it up as a part of the collection. I do plan to do other Red Room fics in the future. A reboot of sorts.

Author's Note:

In 2015, Marvel is finally starting to leak the Black Widow's backstory for the MCU. Given these revelations, I have decided to close down this WIP and let the inspiration flow for other MCU-based Red Room fics in the future. Thanks to all my readers and commenters! I'll see you in the fanverse!

~Aurora


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